# “The prime motive of existence” by John Calvin

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2024/06/05/the-prime-motive-of-existence-by-john-calvin/
- Published: 2024-06-05T11:00:00-05:00
- Author: tollelege

“It is not very sound theology to confine a man’s thoughts so much to himself, and
not to set before him, as the prime motive of his existence, zeal to illustrate 
the glory of God.

For we are born first of all for God, and not for ourselves. As all things flowed
from him, and subsist in him, so, says Paul, (**Rom. 11:36**) they ought to be referred
to Him.

I acknowledge, indeed, that the Lord, the better to recommend the glory of His name
to men, has tempered zeal for the promotion and extension of it, by uniting it indissolubly
with our salvation.

But since He has taught that this zeal ought to exceed all thought and care for 
our own good and advantage, and since natural equity also teaches that God does 
not receive what is His own, unless He is preferred to all things, it certainly 
is the part of a Christian man to ascend higher than merely to seek and secure the
salvation of his own soul.

I am persuaded, therefore, that there is no man imbued with true piety, who will
not consider as insipid that long and laboured exhortation to zeal for heavenly 
life, a zeal which keeps a man entirely devoted to himself, and does not, even by
one expression, arouse him to sanctify the name of God.

But I readily agree with you that, after this sanctification, we ought not to propose
to ourselves any other object in life than to hasten towards that high calling; 
for God has set it before us as the constant aim of all our thoughts, and words,
and actions.

And, indeed, there is nothing in which man excels the lower animals, unless it be
his spiritual communion with God in the hope of a blessed eternity. And, generally,
all we aim at in our discourses is to arouse men to meditate upon it, and aspire
to it.”

–John Calvin, [_A Reformation Debate: John Calvin and Jacopo Sadoleto_](https://amzn.to/3R3tcGI),
Ed. John C. Olin (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1539/1966), 59.

More quotes from [John Calvin](https://tollelege.net/category/john-calvin/) · More
on [Sanctification](https://tollelege.net/category/sanctification/)